Hi, On Mon, 6 Feb 2023 12:45:17 +0100 Bastian Blank <wa...@debian.org> wrote: > > The bigger picture is: packages are not part of the Debian build > > infrastructure (buildd, piuparts, etc) for hours and this blocks many > > development activities. > > They are. The buildd use incoming.d.o with accepted packages as > additional source.
maybe let me use this topic to ask a maybe a little bit tangential question. For a few days I have been involved in fixing the autopkgtest of my package mmdebstrap to make it work with Helmut's recent merged-/usr uploads of bash, dash, util-linux and glibc. My workflow is: fix a thing, upload, see if ci.d.n is happy, fix bug, repeat. This takes multiple dinstalls and thus multiple days of work for me. This is not a nice experience for me as a contributor because instead of being able to sit down and fix the thing, I have to spread my work across multiple days. I'm aware that there are multiple possible fixes to this: 1. add support for using incoming as a apt source to ci.d.n 2. set up my own copy of ci.d.n (difficult as i'm on a slow arm cortex a53 system with 3.7 GB ram) 3. ask far a shell on ci.d.n from elbrus 4. add support for apt pinning to autopkgtest on salsaci I must admit I'm not that frustrated by the six hour dinstall time as while it is not optimal, it is something I find myself having accepted as the way that Debian just works. So whatever. But here comes my tangential question: I have my package (mmdebstrap) which seems to require overall 29 seconds to build on the builds. The buildd queues are empty. I upload an hour before the next dinstall. Then it takes 20 minutes for the ACCEPTED mail to arrive after my dput (why this long?) and then it takes another half an hour before the buildds even register that there is a new binary package to be built (why this long?), then it builds in 29 seconds, 10 minutes before the next dinstall it's finished. It still misses it. So my question: for a package that takes 29 seconds to build and empty buildd queues. How long before the official dinstall times do I have to upload so that my package makes it? It is very frustrating to upload an hour in advance, plan my time for the day accordingly, only to then see it fail. This waiting time and unpredictability is what makes Debian development extremely frustrating for me. I do not understand why processing such a tiny package is taking a full hour. Maybe things would be a bit better if I would at least be able to predict what is going on at a given time. I literally told my family: hey can I have some free time later to work on Debian and now it's not going to happen. This is not a problem of only 4 dinstalls per day but it's a problem of not knowing what is going on and why. Maybe this can be improved? Thanks! cheers, josch
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